You want to success. But what is success?
When talking about successful people, you may think about Nobel prize winners like Einstein or super rich like Bill Gates.
I recently watched a TED Playlist – Redefining success.
Here are the new definitions about success:
- Success is near win. It is different from mastering, which is long term “success”.
- Success is not a one time thing. It is a cycle of working hard and achieving your goals.
- Success should be measured by intangible metrics such as happiness.
- Success is easier if we set up milestones in the middle.
Based on these new definitions, I will define my success as continually working hard to achieve my goals and being happy.
The most funny and interesting video in this Playlist is the Rory Sutherland‘s Perspective is everything. He mentioned that you will feel frustrated if you feel you cannot control your time. An interesting example is that people who live on pension are happier than people who are unemployed. The rationale is that people who live on pension choose to do that and they feel their lives are under control by themselves. However, people who are unemployed are normally upset since they feel their lives are not controlled by themselves. There are a lot of uncertainties that they do not know when they will land their next jobs and where they will go. That is why we put countdown in the traffic lights to avoid the frustration of uncertainty.
I could not agree more about this kind of feeling. Every time I am searching for my next project, I feel very frustrated and upset. I am much more happier when I am working on a project and know what I will be doing next. And it becomes a negative emotion cycle that I cannot get rid of. To change the perspective and turn it into a positive emotion cycle, I treat the uncertainty as freedom to explore new opportunities, as mentioned in Janine Shepherd‘s epic TED talk. I value my bench time and use it effectively to prepare for my next project, learn new technologies and do something that I have always been wanting to do, such as building my own website, writing my first blog post and refreshing my Japanese. It goes back to my definition of success: continually working hard to achieve my goals and being happy.
What is your definition of success? Share it here!